Hulu encrypts its HTML to fend off Boxee…again | Hacker News Reader

Hulu encrypts its HTML to fend off Boxee…again

venturebeat.com

18 pointsciscoriordan6 comments

Boxee including XULRunner isn't circumventing any "encryption". Boxee is then a browser which works on your TV. I'm guessing the content providers for Hulu don't know that you can use your TV as a monitor for your computer yet either.

Also, I never heard of JavaScript source code that is meant to be eval'd qualifying as "encryption". At best you can call it obfuscation.

    document.documentElement.appendChild(document.createTextNode("omfg this is encrypted!!1!!!! DON'T TRY TO CIRCUMVENT"))

So the networks would rather Boxee users download full HD, ad-free versions of their shows from the Pirate Bay rather than watch the low-def versions with ads from Hulu?

And then they complain about losing money...

It's pretty easy to circumvent the encryption, but the act of doing so might be a DMCA violation.

I think you just hit the nail on the head. I was wondering why Hulu would take the time to implement such a braindead "encryption" scheme. All you need is a JavaScript interpreter to break this.

But now they can sue anyone who serves their content because it's circumventing their broken encryption scheme. DMCA is quite a nifty bit of legislation.

Hell, publishers once sued someone successfully under DMCA for breaking an "encryption" scheme based on rot13. I kid you not: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-116424.html?legacy=zdnn

What is html encryption anyways? obfuscation?

Looks like some code that has to be run through a couple JS functions before it's legible. I tried seeing where it actually happens on the site and can't find it. Regardless, it has already been "cracked".

http://www.hulu.com/channels/Action-and-Adventure?ajax=true&...

(That's a link from the article, I can't see anything like that when browsing through the site. It's all plain text for me.)

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